DENVER Aug 10 (Reuters) - A 53-year-old man was killed and
two people were missing in Colorado after floodwaters and a
mudslide triggered by torrential rains roared down mountainsides
stripped of vegetation by a wildfire, authorities said on
Saturday.

The man who was found dead early Saturday on the side of a
highway that leads up to the 14,000-foot (4,300-meter) Pikes
Peak lived in an adjacent county, the El Paso County Sheriff's
Office said in a statement.

"The body was not inside a vehicle and much of the body was
buried beneath significant amounts of debris," the sheriff's
office said.

Autopsy results were pending, but it is believed the man
drowned trying to escape the rushing water, the sheriff's office
said.

Nearly 1.5 inches (4 cm) of rain fell in 30 minutes on
Friday night in an area devastated by a wildfire last year,
causing a creek to overflow its banks and cascade across a state
highway and into the town of Manitou Springs, about 6.5 miles
(10 km) west of Colorado Springs.

Manitou Springs Police Chief Joe Ribeiro told a news
conference on Saturday that one of three people reported missing
earlier in the day had been located, but two people remained
unaccounted for.

"We've gained no ground on locating those people," Ribeiro
said of the rescue and recovery efforts.

Ribeiro said about 40 vehicles swept away in the torrent had
been towed out of the debris, while six buildings had been
deemed unsafe to enter and another 11 structures sustained
limited damage from the flood and mud flow.

Footage aired by local television showed a wall of water
carrying vehicles down the narrow canyon roadway and into the
town, which sits at the foot of Pikes Peak.

Leslie Lewis, executive director of the Manitou Springs
Chamber of Commerce, said she was in her office when
flood-warning sirens went off on Friday evening.

She watched as Fountain Creek jumped its banks and when the
waters receded, the downtown area was strewn with tree branches,
other debris and several inches of mud.

"Now I know why they call it a flash flood - it was a very,
very quick event," she said by phone.

The National Weather Service issued another flash flood
watch for the area on Saturday, as heavy rains are forecast to
hover over the region.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Editing by Scott Malone and David
Brunnstrom)